The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-11-26
editorial 8riets.
BY REV. I. M. ATWOOD, D. D.
Canton, N. Y.

edly, that Spies and EnRel and Parsons
and Fischer suffered Justly. The courts
and the public are in accord. This does
not prove that they are right; for often
they agree together in the wrong Rnt
the proposition does not appear violent
one,that II anybody should hang, it should
be men who try to propagate their opin-
ions and reform society by tossing dyna-
mite about. The only question is that of
the actual complicitv Of these men in a
Pc ocular crime. On such a point the
courts, after due process, must be accept
/. ed as-epthority. =
Yet these four men and their fonr faI.
low prisoners were not in their own ewes
murderers. They did not feel guilty.
Neither Emmett nor John Brown were
freer from the sense Of crimipaIitv than
Spies and Parsons. They regarded them
selves as martyrs to cause. To sober.
minded people the cause they sacrificed
themselves for is Infamous. Bnt thew
were not sober-minded. They were tyran-
nlzed by an idea. The boundary betwean
sane enthusiasm and wild tanaticism,
like that between liberty and anarchy. is
not carefully drawn in every brain.
The sympathy of large numbers of
people for the condemned men is NOT. tn
our mind, dlscreditable. 1t is not to anv
mans credit that he can say he has no
sympathy with poor wretches. Probably
tens OF thousands felt sympathy who vet
gave no sign. Taken with all its accom-
panlments and Implications, it was a
very solemn tragedy. Very few, we an
prehend, who had carefully investigated
the whole matter were perfectly clear
what equity demanded, or what public
policy dictated. Our own sympathies
have been largely with the officers of the
law. They were in difficult strait. with
a grave responsibility on them. They
would have been glad to heed the miles
Oh petluon; but to do that would have
been to transfer responsibility to ire
sponslble shoulders. 1t is better TO be
under even stern law than under no law.
1t is, perhaps, too much TO expect
that man insane enough to proclaim
himself an anarchist will be adorned with
the rare jewel Of consistency; since there
seems to be famine soto epeull-. e e sss,e
article among all grades of mortals. But
when an anarchist goes two hundred
miles to deliver funeral Grafton over the
bodies of executed comrades, and in
duiges hlmself In a variety Of threats of
slaughter, he should have too solemn
sense of the fitness Of things to insert in
his harangue a little sermon on the sa-
credness Of human life II it had not
been at funeral, the dead men must
have laughed in his face.
In the letters of the late Horace
Greeley, which the Christian Union is
/ printing, are many remarks and allu-
slons that show Mr.. Greeey's connection
With Universalists and interest in their
denomlnational action. The letters would
be better appreciated, we fancy, if print
ed in a Universalist paper; they certainly
u
these letters, under date Of Aug. 81, IS43,
MIR. Greeley has his fing-as frequently
IN others at the Abolitionists in general
and at Gerrit Smith and Alvan Stewart
IN particular. He concludes with the re-
mark; " mean to go to the Universalist
Convention this year and get resolutions
passed advocating my kind OF anti.sla-
very In those days Mr.. Greeley's kind
OF anti slavery consisted in moving heay.
en- and earth to make a stakeholder,
Henry Clay, President. He even urged
Abolitionists to vote for Mr. Clay on the
ground that if they did so the great Ken
tuckian would himself do something to-
ward getting slavery abolished. The
plan OF converting men by putting them
IN office hes had unusual attractions for
politicians time ont of mind
The Rev. Geo. Bachelor asks a start,
ling question. On the supposition that
the progenitor of man was an "anthrc-
poid something ape or other ANIMAL"
and that We could reproduce it in bust or
statue, he inquiries, Who OF us is bold
enough and educated enough to set up
that bust or statue over the library book
shelves?-the snthropoid something at
one end, Emerson or Martiueau at the
other,-while we write underneath the
words Of Paul, First the animal: after
that the spiritual?" The preachers Of the
gospel of evolution must act on Mr..
Bachelors HIT and equip their studies
with this powerful object lesson.
In the sermon from which we onota
this inquiry, Mr.. Bachelor utters some
Of the st'angest and wisest words our
Unitarian brethren have lately been sum-
moned to hear. His main propositiop.
that to enjoy the fruits of progress
without recognizing the tree on which the
fruits grow, Is at once folly and disaster.
has seldom been stated with more copclu-
siye force or illustrated with more telling
effect. Such a sermon as this Of Bishop
Bachelor Of the Unitarian church, and
such a sermon rs that lately preached at
Cornell University by Bishop Hunting
ton OF the Episcopal church, persuades
us that the American pulpit is by no
means far gone in decline